Virtual Strangers

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  thesimpsons@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear Charlie,

  You said it. But, for God’s sake, get on with it, will you? Life is far too short to waste your time on anything that doesn’t make you happy. Oh, and how about this - I read it just this morning, and I thought of you (it’s a quote by Colleen McCulloch); ‘the lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate 25 year old men more’. So it makes sense, doesn’t it? Do it. Do it now. Then you’ll still have plenty of time to appreciate a twenty five year old man or two.

  griffithxxxx

  Or three. Though perhaps one will be enough.

  griffith@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear griffith,

  Wow! You’re surely not twenty-five, are you? It never occurred to me! What a wonderful, uplifting thought! Actually, it all makes sense. What with Bill Gates and silicon valley and so on. (Though he is forty odd by now, isn’t he?) But, hey! What a lovely surprise; a toy-cyber-boy! How exactly would you like to be appreciated? Tell me now.

  Yours, in feverish anticipation,

  Charliexxxx and X

  I have to wait twenty four hours for a response, but as I’m still sailing blissfully on a high fluffy cloud of silliness, anything-being-possible and ridiculous speculation, I care little. I care not a jot.

  thesimpsons@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear Charlie,

  Oh dear. Sorry, but I’m going to have to disappoint you. Not quite twenty five, I’m afraid. But feel free to pretend, if it makes you feel better. And what I lack in muscle tone I can certainly make up for in imagination. And in a dim light - no - forget that. When you reach a certain age you’re not so demanding about that sort of thing anyway. I’m certainly not. Give me enthusiasm and a big bed and, well..... Did I say ‘disappoint’?

  griffith.XXXXX

  griffith@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear griffith,

  Much relieved. There’s nothing so daunting as the sight of young flesh rippling with great expectations. Because while I’ve no doubt I could give it a run for its money, I’m less certain the concept would hang together so well, once the flesh in question clapped eyes on my almost-forty-year-old-packaging...

  I pause to grope for an appropriate adjectival grouping and find myself suddenly transfixed. Hang on a minute. Hang on a minute. I bring up the last few emails and re-read them more carefully (at least, with less childish emphasis on the bits between the type). Aha. Hang. On. A. Minute. Delete email, and send instead;

  Hang on a minute. How did you know I’m going to be forty?

  Await answer. Make tea. Await answer. Drink tea. Await answer. Take mug back to kitchen and wash up. Await answer. I have been here before. Do not get one. I type;

  Come on. I’m waiting. And this silence feels guilty.

  And unexpectedly scary. I send the email and wait some more. Then go to bed.

  Well, what else is there to do? I come down obscenely early in the morning but there’s still no post. I spend some minutes groaning and pulling on my fringe. Spend a further few thinking, then groan a bit more. Type;

  griffith@cymserve.co.uk

  Oh, God. So it is true, isn’t it? All this time and you’ve done it to me again! I can’t believe it! I can’t believe me. You do know me, don’t you? You know exactly who I am. Oh my God. You bastard. Grrrrrr. I am so cross with you. I can see I’m just going to have to move to Canterbury. God, I hate you. I’m going back to bed.

  I click hard on the mouse and send the email in high dudgeon. I recall also what griffith said about action. I’ll give him action. But who him? Who him?

  I have ample opportunity to consider his identity, as I do not receive a response until late Saturday night.

  thesimpsons@cymserve.co.uk

  Look Charlie,

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. And you don’t hate me. Really. I can see you might be a little riled, but it has been a laugh, hasn’t it? And, believe me, I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone anything you told me. I’m not that kind of guy. Look, can’t we just forget all about this?

  griffith.

  Sunday. Late a.m.

  Stomping irresolute and irritable around the house while the implications of my admission of my (albeit wistful rather than actionable) sexual inclinations flood nerve-janglingly into the quagmire of my consciousness. I telephone Rose to run this depressing development by her.

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘Rose, believe me. I just know.’

  ‘How? Give me evidence. Oh. In fact, no. Hold on. I have to turn my parsnips. Hold on..... There. Sorted. So. How do you know?’

  ‘Because he knew I was going to be forty next birthday.’

  ‘But you could have told him that, surely. It’s a big thing in your life.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you start. And I didn’t, for definite. I went through my old emails; every single one. The nearest I got was the fact that I mentioned it was going to be my birthday and that I hadn’t been to Nepal yet and so on.’

  ‘So he could have guessed forty then, couldn’t he? It’s the big birthday, after all.’

  ‘Ah, but I know he didn’t. When I challenged him he didn’t email me back for hours and hours. And then when I emailed him again and ranted at him and told him I hated him, he emailed back and said “You don’t hate me, really.” As if making a point, you know?’

  ‘Hmm, I suppose. But not necessarily.’

  ‘And now I’ve gone through the old emails again, little things strike me. Like him mentioning Cardiff. I never told him where I lived, ever.’

  ‘Hmm. Fairly conclusive then.’

  ‘Completely conclusive. He knows who I am. He knows all about me. And yet I don’t have the first clue who he is. God, this is awful! Awful! Perhaps it’s better if I don’t know. I’ll never be able to look anyone in the eye, ever again.’

  Sunday. Still pm. Drag, drag, drag.

  Phil arrived, on schedule, for lunch, clutching a bottle of red and a pot of chrysanthemums for me.

  ‘You always get your money’s worth with a pot mum,’ declared my father happily. ‘Cut that back, Charlotte, and it’ll flower again for you. You can even take cuttings and grow new ones with those.’

  Oh, God. Oh, God. If you were a flower, I thought miserably, then what would you be? A lily? A briar rose? An orchid, perhaps? Charlie Simpson, of course, would be a small pot chrysanthemum; cheerful, no-nonsense, with big bile coloured blooms. Long lived, dependable, bright, undemanding; a flower so completely without pretension or attitude that only the most evil and foul tempered person could consider it anything but, well, jolly nice.

  Phil, who had doubtless simply scooped up what was to hand in the Spar, and who, anyway, had probably not the remotest idea why a gift of a potted chrysanthemum would cause me anything but grateful delight (and why should he?) nodded cheerfully as he took off his raincoat.

  ‘Something smells good!’ he chirruped. I made off with the wine.

  The trouble with Phil - the trouble with us - was that we had never reached a degree of closeness that would be sufficient for me to be able to say ‘I’m sorry, but I actually can’t stand chrysanthemums’ and so on, and now, six months on, it was too late to start. Which is why, I suddenly realised, with breathtaking conviction, one should never contemplate adult (sex-inclusive relationships) with people for whom we feel less than compulsive desire. It wasn’t that I didn’t fancy Phil. Indeed, the first couple of times we disrobed and got down to it, I recall it as being immensely enjoyable. But then I recall that for some weeks eight years back, I felt like that about playing Sonic The Hedgehog as well.

  While Phil laid the table and Dad beat up a horseradish, I just sat and drank wine and felt stroppy and guilty and glared at the pot bloody yellow bloody mum.

  But, then again, had they been lilies, just how would I have felt?

  ‘So,’ Phil announced, while my father doled out roast potatoes. ‘My trip’s all fixed up. I’m off Friday teatime. You going to go the Stablefords’ then?’

&nb
sp; He addressed this to me, but it was my father who answered.

  ‘Looking forward to it, Phillip. It’ll be nice to get to know the locals, so to speak. And can’t have Charlie turning up on her own, now, can we? A girl needs an escort.’

  Phil looked at me carefully, presumably to ascertain whether my father was making some sort of point here (which he was) and whether I was in agreement with it (which I wasn’t). I had never indicated the least irritation about him trolling off up the dales without me, principally because he had asked me if I’d wanted to come when he’d booked it, and I had said no. So the fact of my father intimating that some archaic rule had been broken coupled with Phil looking/feeling/acting even remotely guilty about it coupled with the fact that I had all these ridiculous but unsettling stirrings about a man I was swapping emails with made me even more irritable than I already was. I didn’t need “escorting” anywhere, thank you. I rolled my eyes to emphasise the fact, and, quite without consciously realising I was doing it, reached out and plucked a bud - pop! - from the chrysanthemum. My father took the roasting tin back to the kitchen.

  ‘Do you have a problem, Charlie?’ Phil enquired quietly.

  My scarlet face clashed with the forlorn yellow petals.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that,’ I said.

  Grrr. I wish I was in Canterbury. Wish I was eating parsnips from Rose’s Raeburn, instead of disgusting grey roast beef and rag-rug cabbage plus jam roly poly with Ben and Phil and Dad. Wish I had gone with subversive plan B and snuck off with Ben to the Sports Café and eaten nachos and chilli dogs while playing slam-dunk or on the complimentary Playstation console. Anything. Wish I hadn’t invited Phil over at all. Wish I could pluck up enough resolve to tell Phil that I’m very much not an English Heritage type person. Wish I could pluck up enough courage to tell Phil I’m actually very much not a Phil type person. Wish I could take Ben and Dan up a very large mountain and explain cols/moraines/screes etc. while marvelling at the inspirational new perspective on life afforded by the breathtaking high altitude aspect. Wish I could get a new perspective, period. Wish mainly that I could persuade myself that mystery griffith was really of not the slightest importance at all.

  ‘Is there something up?’ This was Phil, while we were loading the dishwasher. ‘You’ve not seemed yourself over the last few weeks.’

  Crash, clatter, fumble, bang.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry about the chrysanthemum, okay? And, no. No, there isn’t. Phil - upside down. The cutlery has to go in upside down or it doesn’t get clean. See? And if you put all the knives in together like that, the blades stick to each other and you end up having to wash them all again. There. No. No, I’m fine.’

  ‘No you’re not.’ He rattled the cutlery basket. ‘Feeling a bit low? Hormones?

  Hormones? Why do men say that? Do they really think it will cast them in a saintly, so-switched-on-to-women’s-issues type light?

  ‘Yes. I have the usual complement, thank you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Of hormones.’ I slapped down the meat tin and a big glob of fat hit his trouser leg. ‘As do you. But if you’re in a strop, I don’t ask after the state of your adrenals, do I?’

  ‘I only asked. It’s not like you to be testy and irritable. Is it Rose going? Is it me?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said, in my instinctive, not facing up to the issue at large, usual ineffectual Simpson manner. ‘It’s just that I really can’t be with someone who insists on slap dash dishwasher procedures.’

  Phil flapped his tea towel and said, rather sneerily, ‘a touch anal for someone who prides herself on being a bit of a ‘wild child’, isn’t it?’ And put finger quote marks around the wild child bit. Pah!

  ‘Pshaw! When did I ever say I was that?’

  ‘You didn’t need to,’ he sniffed, launching a spoon at the cutlery basket. ‘It’s a bit of a persona thing with you. You know - the free spirit bit. Don’t pretend you don’t ham it up.’

  What?

  ‘Ham it up? Persona bit? What are you on about? Just because I don’t want to spend every waking moment footling around appreciating architraves and first editions of worthy biographies, and going to the bloody opera, doesn’t make me a ‘wild child’ you know.’ (Even though I was rather pleased with the label, which sat rather well with my ‘unstructured’ flower fairy tag.) ‘And,’ I finished, ‘ I’m certainly not anal.’

  He laughed (Cheek!) as he reached for the dishwasher powder. ‘You bloody are.’

  ‘Don’t swear,’ I snapped back, quick as you like. ‘Ben might be around.’

  ‘Oh, and of course he wouldn’t know any swear words, would he? And I must say I take offence at ‘footling’. I don’t footle.’

  ‘If I do a ‘persona bit’ then you bloody footle. And that teaspoon’s gone through the mesh. Get it out, please, before you switch it on, or the spinner won’t work.’

  Sunday evening.

  Nothing sorted. No progress. Have failed to finish with Phil. Have failed to communicate with Phil in any sense. In fact, I’ve been having conversations with Phil that are so banal that I am almost convinced that I’ve been married to him for twenty years and have simply neglected to remember. And I am considered anal. I am most definitely not anal. Phil is the anal one, as he is so concerned about food debris soiling skin/hair/clothes etc., that he cannot bring himself to execute the risky manoeuvre involved in loading cutlery in the drainer basket tines/blades up. Hah. Anal in the extreme. Whereas my own stance is based purely on the practical consideration of the inefficiency and irritation involved in retrieving still-dirty cutlery. I’m concerned however re. the ‘wild child’ tag. Though uplifting on the face of it, the ‘persona’ angle is rather disquieting. Do not wish to be considered a poser among my friends. Will henceforth have to keep quiet about my Everest ambition, or I will appear pretentious.

  It’s clearer still that I am definitely stringing out the Phil/ending it debacle through a subconscious terror of total existential aloneness. Plus (if I’m honest) practical aloneness in social function situations. I cannot take a virtual stranger to the Dog and Trouserleg. But now I do have Dad to take out with me. So I must end it. (But must pay for the dry cleaning of Phil’s trousers first.)

  4 am

  Wake suddenly and re-run old emails in brain. God. Who the hell is griffith? I just don’t know anyone by that name. Except...except...think, Simpson. Think!

  4.22.

  Ratted! That’s it! Yes! Ratted!

  Monday. Decisive. Before work (after strenuous attention to hair/bow alignment , as extent of carpet/upholstery cleaning at Cherry Ditchling is sure to become known any day. Do not wish to antagonise Davina further.)

  griffith@cymserve.co.uk

  Right, griffith. Moment of truth time, or else. I now realise that you were at Rose and Matt’s leaving party, and do not intend to rest until I have deduced your identity. Am going to phone cymserve as soon as I log off. If I tell them you’re stalking my modem with improper suggestions, I’m sure they’ll supply the information I need.

  Charlotte Simpson.

  cc. cymserve.co.uk

  Hah! cc. a nice touch. That should do the trick!

  Dinner time. Stressed.

  Turfed Ben off computer at 7 pm sharp with the promise of a quality-time, activity based weekend next week. (But still held out over decision regarding his desired encroachment into low-life activities with his brother in London.)

  Bing! went computer. You have post! Imagining myself as a cute yet feisty Meg Ryan character (except hair too dark, too curly, too long, too split-endy, plus not mega-buck movie star, plus doesn’t everyone like to think they’re bloody Meg Ryan?, plus oops! must anyway refrain from adopting personas) I cyber-walked to my mail room and retrieved the latest email.

  thesimpsons@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear Charlotte Simpson (if we must),

  Though the idea of stalking your modem with improper suggestions has definite appeal (despite
boils/stoop/pizza caveat), I am beginning to feel rather embarrassed about this whole business. Please believe me when I say that all your secrets are safe with me, and that I think it really would be best if we left it at that. Hope you make Everest. And get your kitchen. Though personally, I’d put my cash into the trip and make it a great one. A new kitchen is fine, but it won’t make you happy. Being (almost) on top of the world certainly will.

  Griffithxx

  Thought; Oh! Griffith! With a capital G! Ah! Griffith with a capital G who is male who knows me who knows I was ratted at Rose and Matt’s party who thinks it would really be best if we left it at that. Oh, really. I’ll bet. But not a chance, buster. Not an earthly of a chance. Will work on a process of elimination from Rose and Matt’s party guest list just as soon as Rose digs it up and emails it to me. Oh, yes. And if the list fails to establish mystery-griffith identity, I will simply trap all passing men-friends and engage them in fact-finding disingenuous light conversation at every social engagement until the matter is resolved. (Plus Everest thing very - very something. Very what?) So send;

  griffith@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear Griffith,

  Sweet-talk all you like, it’s still not good enough. But, okay, let’s do a deal. We will take this no further. But to that end we must work on the need-to-know principle. If you want this to end, you’ll appreciate that I need to know who you are. And if you don’t want me to spend any more time trying to find out (and I will - I have a guest list, and it’s a simple case of elimination) then you need to tell me who you are. End of cyber-dialogue.

  Charlotte Simpson.

  PS But before I go - what about that guy you know who can give me the advice about my trip? You never told me who he was, and I think you at least owe me that.